Catholic Notre Dame

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I join Lauren Hoedeman and the rest of Catholic Vote in thanking Fr. Jenkins and Notre Dame for filing the lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the unjust mandate requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization procedures.

 

I also agree with Lauren that the criticism leveled against Notre Dame has at times been unfounded and uninformed.  I would dispute that the school is “Catholic in name only” or that it “lost its Catholic identity a long time ago.”  Lauren, and several commenters to her post, point out a number of reasons why the University of Notre Dame might still rightly call itself Catholic.

 

However, it struck me that most, if not all, of the testimonials reaffirming the Catholic identity of Notre Dame were based on the experiences of those who either attended or visited the university at some point.  To an extent this makes perfect sense.  The best way to get a sense of the “identity” of a place is to be physically present in that place and to spend time with the people there.  And it doesn’t take many minutes on the Notre Dame campus for one to be aware, and keenly so, that this place is Catholic.

  

But as I am sure any student, faculty member, or alum would tell you, Notre Dame is not just a few acres in South Bend.  No, Notre Dame is her people, those very same students, faculty, and alumni.  Indeed, one of the refrains heard and seen in campus is “We are ND.”  And for many defenders of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, it is the people of Notre Dame, and specifically the faithful students and faculty, who are held out as the bearers of the university’s true colors, despite some unfortunate actions taken by the administration.

 

But if Notre Dame’s identity is defined by the faithful students and faculty, isn’t it also defined by the board of trustees and the president of the university?  Notre Dame reaches far beyond its own physical borders, and often the face of Notre Dame to the rest of the county or the rest of the Church is the face of Fr. Jenkins.  The actions of Notre Dame are the actions of the board and the administration.

 

Notre Dame has a very strong Catholic identity.  But it’s not conservative Catholic, nor is it liberal Catholic.  It’s a Catholic identity of its own making.  It is Notre Dame Catholic.

 

Now that can sound subversive, even heretical to some people, a pithy summation of all that is impudent and dispicable about Notre Dame.  To others, especially students and alumni, maybe it evokes feelings of pride, encapsuling the fierce independence of the Fighting Irish – yes, we are Catholic, but we are Notre Dame Catholic.  I don’t know – the phrase does neither for me, so maybe not for anyone else either.

But Notre Dame’s Catholic identity is not just an incidental product of the ideas, commitments, and principles of the students and faculty.  It is that certainly, but not just that.  Notre Dame’s utterly unique brand of Catholicism is also very much a project of design and calculation on the part of the president and the administration.  I am not suggesting smoke-filled back rooms and conspiracy theories.  But I am suggesting that there’s no small amount of political savvy in the decisions that come from Fr. Jenkins’ office.

People have called Fr. Jenkins many things, but I don’t think one of them is stupid.  Three years ago Fr. Jenkins bestowed an honorary degree upon a man who professed complete dedication to the Culture of Death.  Yesterday, Fr. Jenkins sued that same man’s administration in federal court.  I suppose there’s many ways to interpret this turn of events, but it seems to be more than just a breakdown in dialogue.

Fr.  Jenkins’ concern is Notre Dame’s unique status as the only Catholic university that still garners top-tier respect within the Church and the secular world.  He knows the adaptation of the old Abraham Lincoln saying:  you can please all of the people some of the time, and you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.  Notre Dame knows this, and knows it well.  And I use “Notre Dame” and “Fr. Jenkins” interchangeably now for a reason, because whether you like it or not, when it comes to the public positions taken by the university, Fr. Jenkins is Notre Dame.  Nobody says “Fr. Jenkins invites Obama to speak” or “Fr. Jenkins sues Obama.”  It’s Notre Dame, even though the decision is made by Fr. Jenkins…identity again, see?

“All the people” that Notre Dame needs to please some of the time include the entire spectrum of Catholic and secular opinion:  The liberal faculty, the conservative faculty, the liberal students, the conservative students, the liberal alumni, the conservative alumni, the football alumni, the secular academy, the national media, the local bishop, the Vatican, the President, etc…

 Fr. Jenkins knows he will never be able to please everyone with each decision he makes.  But he is acutely aware of a truth that, among all institutions of higher learning, applies exclusively to Notre Dame: everybody wants Notre Dame on their side.  Liberals and secularists could care less about what a Thomas Aquinas College or a Franciscan University does or says.  Just the same, conservative Catholics don’t much care what Harvard or Yale does or says.  And the Catholic universities that have fully embraced secularism, like Geogetown or DePaul, have become pitiful sideshows that nobody takes seriously any more.

But Notre Dame is still Notre Dame, and it’s the only one like it.  Everybody cares what Notre Dame does.  This is a big part of what gives the school its prestige, it’s individualism, it’s “We Are ND” pride in being like no other.  Sure, any university has its school pride, its esprit de corps, some even notoriously, but when is the last time you saw the president of Texas A&M or Ohio State in the news?  Or even Harvard?

 

There’s an old adage in international diplomacy:  Russia is never as strong as it looks, and Russia is never as weak as it looks.  Something similar could be said for Notre Dame:  it’s never as liberal as it looks, and it’s never as conservative as it looks.  And with that innate premise comes the corollary facade that is so much more attractive to whoever is looking for reasons to love the Golden Dome:  Don’t worry – Notre Dame is more conservative than it seems; or don’t worry, Notre Dame is more liberal than it seems.

Fr. Jenkins knows that Notre Dame’s allure, prestige, and even its viability depend in its ability to appeal to many different people on some level, to be able to tack with the winds of change while appearing solid and principled, to adapt and progress while honoring tradition, and of utmost importance – to do all things on its own time, immune from influences both secular and ecclesiastical.  Notre Dame marches to it’s own drummer, because it can.  And this aura of being some sort of unmoved mover in the nation’s academic and religious consciousness only adds to Notre Dame’s preeminence.  A key element of Fr. Jenkins’ role is to cultivate that image.

It may be a cynical way of looking at things.  However, I still find it difficult to give Fr. Jenkins the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his motivations.  And while Monday’s lawsuit should be hailed as the right move by Notre Dame, it may also just be the next step in the same old dance.  The music changes and so do the partners, but Notre Dame is always there, in the Catholic spotlight, the star of the show.  Sometimes we boo, sometimes we applaud, but we all come to watch.

That’s Notre Dame.